Second, unlike their first meeting at 195 pounds, this one will happen slightly lower down the catchweight scale at 190. While that won’t matter much to Silva, who’s been competing at middleweight for the last two years, it’ll be the first time Franklin has had to fight below 195 pounds since he beat up Travis Lutter in 2008.

And of course, Silva vs. Franklin 2 will go down in Silva’s home country of Brazil, whereas their first fight at UFC 99 took place in the neutral territory of Cologne, Germany. Add up enough minor differences, and the tenor of the fight could change drastically. Franklin is a slightly heavier favorite over Wandy going into this fight (-155) as he was going into their last one (-140). Should he be?

MMA fighters aren’t exactly known for their fashion sense. So it should come as little surprise that most MMA t-shirt companies produce some pretty questionable designs. The rampant abuse of foil print, skulls, chains, tribal designs and nautical stars among most MMA t-shirts is bad enough on its own; even worse when you consider that they sell for thirty bucks a pop.

Which I guess makes it all the worse when a fighter makes his way to the cage covered in an “athletic fit” Old-English mess. Not only is the shirt revolting, but it’s going to sell for an outlandish sum of money, and be worn by every overweight Texas Roadhouse chef, milquetoast tech support geek and muscle-bound frat boy.

Perhaps the reason that we’ve never attempted an “Ugliest Walkout Shirts” post is because ranking these train wrecks is like ranking, well, actual train wrecks. No matter what order you place them in, you’re a total scumbag for attempting to rank a tragedy from most to least depressing. And besides, you’re clearly wrong about which one belongs at number three. For that reason, these will not be ranked, per se, but rather categorized. How you feel these shirts fall into place is up to you.

(This one is for The Number 23, and the next one is for that God damn penguin movie!)

Yep, that’s right. None other than former middleweight champion Rich “Ace” Franklin will be the man to fill in for Vitor Belfort against Wanderlei Silva in the main event of UFC 147. The fight will be contested at a catchweight of 190 pounds. Sound familiar? That might be because these two met at UFC 99 back in June of 2009 at a catchweight of just five pounds heavier (a.k.a Rumbleweight, Franklinweight, Moneyweight, or 195 lbs.). The fight was an action packed affair that saw “Ace” emerge victorious by way of unanimous decision.

Though this matchup will more than likely make for an exciting fight (being that their first scrap took home FOTN honors), we may be looking at the possibility of UFC 147 being demoted from a pay-per-view to a free card at this point. And here’s why.

Whether it’s Jon Jones wanting to move up to heavyweight, or everyone wanting Frankie Edgar to cut to 145, weight-class-shifting is a hot topic for MMA fans and pundits alike. And while we’ve recently covered the perils and benefits of dropping to a lower weight class, the same can be said for moving up in weight. After jumping to heavier divisions, some fighters’ proverbial stars have shined brighter, some have dimmed, and some have gone God-damn-supernova — and it’s never easy to predict which fighters will have success. Check out some notable examples below, and tell us which other fighters you think would do well with some extra meat on their bones.

The Good

Alistair Overeem
(Same guy as above, same backdrop, and yet something is different…)

All insinuations aside, Overeem is a prime example of success at moving up a weight class. As I previously mentioned, Overeem has gone 12-1-1 since making a full commitment to heavyweight, and while the quality of opponents he faced was often questionable, that is still a hell of a good run. If you take a look back at his time at light-heavyweight, the stats are not nearly as impressive. Overeem’s losses usually came at the hands of the light-heavyweight division’s top guys, like Chuck Liddell, Antônio Rogério Nogueira, and Ricardo Arona. His run at light-heavyweight showed that he couldn’t hang with the elites of the respective weight class, and was vulnerable to being manhandled by stronger opponents.

After doing whatever it is he did to bulk up, he turned his fortunes around and achieved the greatest stardom of his career, becoming the poster child for successful jumps up the weight-class ladder. If it wasn’t for some bad decision-making, he would be fighting for the sport’s highest prize this weekend. Here’s to hoping he gets his shit together soon.

As the editor of an MMA website, I’m constantly bombarded with images of tattooed skinheads engaged in gay foreplay. And yet, there are times when I’m faced with an image that even makes me uncomfortable. Check out 25 of the most chillingly awkward MMA photos in the gallery after the jump, laugh nervously, then avert your eyes in shame…

(I’ll take “Injuries that make me reconsider my line of work” for a thousand, Alex.)

Good morning, Potato Nation. As we’re all still nursing hangovers from this weekend’s festivities and trying to cope with the fact that there will be no more The Walking Dead until next fall, let’s start the day off with a bit of light reading.

What’s that, you say? Rich Franklin is also a movie star and Cung Le could probably teach math? Well, there’s no room for that kind of intolerance around here, especially not this early in the morning, so we suggest you pull your heads out of your collective asses. Besides, Rich Franklin is definitely not a movie star.

This will be Franklin’s first fight at middleweight since April of 2008, when he dispatched TUF 4 winner Travis Lutter via second round TKO back at UFC 83. In fact, it’s been a while since we’ve seen “Ace” in the octagon at all. After dropping a unanimous decision to Forrest Griffin at UFC 126, Franklin was expected to face Antonio Rogerio Nogueria at UFC 133. The bout was cancelled, however, after Nogueria suffered a last minute injury, and a subsequent shoulder injury forced Franklin into surgery in October.

Cung Le appeared to be destined for victory in his UFC debut match against Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139 last November, picking apart the former PRIDE middleweight champ with his patented arsenal of San Shou kicks throughout the first round. But as in his fight with Scott Smith at Strikeforce: Evolution, Le would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, eating one knee too many in the second round and dropping his second career loss to “The Axe Murderer” in the second round of their co-headlining scrap. Also similar to the Smith fight would be the horrific nose injury that Le would walk away with.

When it was announced yesterday that Mike Kyle sustained an injury, forcing him out of his planned Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey main card bout with Gegard Mousasi, speculation arose that Mousasi would likely be scratched from the event. If the UFC brass would sign off on a crossover bout between Gegard and one of its fighters, the fight could be salvaged and Mousasi could get an upgrade opponent in the process.

(Anderson beginning several years and dollars worth of therapy for Rich. Photo credit: ESPN)

Five years ago today, a fighter who was relatively unknown at the time outside of hardcore fans who followed Japanese and British MMA, stepped into the UFC Octagon for the second time and emerged less than three minutes later as the promotion’s middleweight champion.

The event was UFC 64 and the fighter was Anderson Silva. His opponent was UFC poster boy Rich Franklin.

The fight represented the beginning of the “Anderson Silva era” as UFC color analyst Joe Rogan would later call it and to those who didn’t know who he was before, it represented the introduction of “The Spider” to the masses who had cut their teeth on mixed martial arts by watching The Ultimate Fighter.

Silva, a former Cage Rage and Shooto champion, utilized both the pinpoint accurate striking he displayed in his equally impressive knockout win over durable never-before-KO’ed slugger Chris Leben at UFN 5 four months later and his impeccable muay thai clinch game to control Franklin while punishing the then-champion with nose-crushing and rib-brusing knees. He made Rich look like an amateur sparring with a pro, and when the dust settled the crowd was left stunned by the dominant display by the UFC’s new 185-pound sheriff in town.

This Friday marks the official start of Autumn, and like clockwork, I’m catching a goddamned cold. There’s something about the change of seasons that seems to wreck my immune system, which has grown frail due to a life of solitary blogging and poor hygeine. So as I chug my Airborne/orange juice cocktail, let’s all take inspiration in these six men, who were way worse-off than I am now, and still managed to kick ass.

Method of victory: TKO (cut), 4:45 of round 2In his own words: ”I took the fight and I was really sick. I was so sick, after the first round I thought I was going to fall unconscious. And I told my cornerman, I’m like, listen, when the second round will start I will try a high kick in the beginning and if I don’t knock out my opponent, I want you to throw the towel. My cornerman look up at me like this, he said ‘Georges, I don’t have a towel, you’re gonna die in the ring.’

And I got so angry, I was like, I can’t believe this guy, he’s supposed to be my friend, he wants me to die in the ring. So I stood up, I hear the [bell], I fought through it, and by some kind of miracle I was able to cut the guy and to TKO him and the referee stopped the fight. I was completely exhausted. That was my toughest fight.”